Page 37 - 2018

Ph.D.
(Management)
AN IN-DEPTH STUDY OF ADOPTION OF ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
(ERP) SYSTEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS WITH SPECIAL FOCUS
ON UNIVERSITY SETUPS IN GUJARAT
Ph.D. Scholar : Purohit Rajenkumar Narendrakumar
Research Supervisor : Dr.N. H. Bhatt

Regi. No.: 11146031009
Abstract :
Unlike decades ago, in the current time, most organizations understand the competitive
advantages that the ERP offers. As a matter of fact, ERP itself has evolved significantly
as an integrated system over these years. Universities and Higher Education Institutions
(HEIs) are also aware about the benefits of the successful implementation of the
education ERP system and the competitive advantages it offers.

Most Universities have the desire to improve upon the operational excellence, student
support services, academic excellence, research-led environment, industry connect,
placements, alumni outreach & alumni connect, better financial management, creating
new learning resources, student admission management, course management etc. At
various forums, the State and Central Government has been also talking about increasing
the operational competency of each of the Higher Education Institutions including the
Universities. However, it is equally difficult to achieve the bars of excellence with manual
processes, which may be inefficient, subjective, inaccurate, non-current, irrelevant, solely
dependent on human interventions and irrational. The Universities and its management,
at various level, need a system-in-place that can support them not only in routine
operations but also in key decision making. An integrated ERP solution can offer wider
range of analytics to the Universities / HEIs and its key personnel to enable them to make
right decisions at right time in right context.

Some of the Universities have already taken a step forward in implementing an integrated
ERP. While there are many Universities / HEIs in India and even globally, which are still
either in a dilemma to adopt ERP, or does not have an inclination towards it at all because
of many reasons. Some of such reasons could be the high cost of the solution, budgetary
constraints, technological constraints, resistance to change, incompetence of the staff, or
an overall unfavourable perception of the management towards ERP Systems.

While the other important factor that affects the overall adoption of ERP largely and
significantly is the end-user's viewpoint in expressing his/her intention-to-use ERP and
then to actually start using it.

Although many researchers have carried out extensive and quality research on the

18